I am on the verge of pulling my hair out as we just cant get passed our 30min naps

We only started EASY a few weeks ago so when i noticed the problem i posted and was advised to reduce "A" time as Kieran is 7 months and ours was 3.5hrs which i was told was too much, so everyday i have been reducing by 15min with still no change, we did have 1 x 1hr nap one afternoon a few days ago with an "A" time of 2.30hrs so i have been sticking with 2.30 during the day but it is very hit & miss but 2.30 just wont work for the morning nap as we are still getting no more than 20/30mins. Today i tried 2.15 and was sure this was going to be it, it takes 15mins for him to settle so i put him down after exactly 2hrs of "A" time and he just lay there wide awake for 30mins, so by the time he finally went to sleep we where back to an "A" time of 2.30hrs and again we had another 30min nap. So at 2.30hrs+ we get 30mins naps and he wakes up cranky but any less than 2.30hrs and he just lays there awake. I was going to try increasing "A" time again for the morning nap but im sure i read that 30min naps always mean O/T so any ideas?

I have been tweaking our EASY routine daily to try and find "A" times that work but here is an example of what we did yesterday:

{{{{{hugs}}}}} At 7 mos, most bubs are doing 2.75 - 3 hrs of A time, and 2 hrs is well below that. 2.5 actually isn't a bad place to start for that first A time of the day (as it is often the shortest). However, it can take several days for a routine tweak to result in a nap change, so if you are changing A times every day, his body never has time to adjust to the new routine. Also, if he has a short nap (anything less than 1 hr), he won't be able to handle his "usual" A time before the next nap, as he won't be well rested. Here's a helpful link on that: What are A times and how do they fit into the EASY routine?

So I'd say start with 2.5 hrs of A time for that first nap, but then if it's short, the next A time will need to be even shorter.

Also, what are you doing in terms of a wind down? When he wakes, is he crying? Do you try to extend the nap at all? If so, how? Have you tried shh/pat or pu/pd?

Michelle you where reading my mind as i thought myself 2-2.15 hrs "A" time was too short for 7.5 months so today i tried 2hr30mins between each nap and now im even more confused as the longest nap we had today was 20mins which is even worse than before (didn't think they could get any worse)!!

The only change was that normally when he wakes from his naps he is crying and his eyes are still closed but today after 20mins he was wide awake and smiling. Just before his naps we don't do anything special in terms of wind down but around 10-15mins before hand we darken and quieten the room to get him ready for his nap. I have tried both shh/pat and pupd to extend naps but it's no use as he just screams and within a few mins he is wide awake.

Now i am stumped what to do now, do i stick with 2.30hrs for a few days and see what happens or do i try 2.45 or 3hrs instead?

I would stick with the same A time you used today - for the first nap. You really need to give it at least 3 days (and really more like 5) to see if it will have an effect on his sleep. Then if the nap is short, the next A time will need to be shorter than 2.5 hrs (probably no more than 2 - he won't be well rested enough to handle 2.5 hrs). That will make your EASY a bit wonky, but that's ok, you want to try to avoid OT building up by nighttime.

Is he teething by any chance? If he wakes early and is happy, I would not get him - he may surprise you and settle back to sleep. If he starts crying, I would recommend trying pu/pd. I know he'll cry, it's not designed to have no tears, but to help teach him to go to sleep. If you always get him up and out of his crib, he won't learn to re-settle himself when he wakes during a nap. But since pu/pd is hard, let's give the A time switch some more time and see what happens first.

Well, today was a bit better for us here. My son still wakes up at the 30 minute mark but today, he was able to put himself back to sleep after about 20-25 minutes. It's Day 5 for us here for nap training where I didn't put him on the swing to extend his naps. It's been a tough couple of days but at least we're seeing some progress. The first A time is still around the 2.45 hr-3 hr range for us because if I try to put him down at 2.5 hrs, he just lies and talks to himself on the bed and doesn't fall asleep until around the 3 hr mark anyways. So far, the naps have not been long and they have been fragmented so the second A time is always much shorter (around 2.5 hrs) but I'm hoping as time goes on, he will learn not to wake fully after the 30 minutes are up and is able to stay asleep for at least an hour. We'll see what happens. Last night, I also tried W2S on my LO because he tends to wake between 4-5 a.m and expecting a feed (even though I know he is not really hungry and is just waking out of habit). Well, it worked and he didn't get up for a feed until 7 this morning. That gave us 11.5 hrs of uninterrupted night sleep which I think really helped him settle back during naps. I'm not sure if Michelle would agree but I think interrupted night sleep at this age can really affect the way they start the day. I'm going to continue to see if I can break him out of his habit and I'll let you know if this also helped improve on the nap situation.

Michelle,

Sorry I haven't been able to reply back on my previous post. I took a break from the previous training session to re-focus and get some direction on how to go about changing things. I'm going to stick by our current A time right now for at least one more week to see if we're getting more progress. = ) I do appreciate your help.

Thanks Michelle again you are probably right as im just so eager to get him to nap that im not giving it enough time to work, i know he is definately O/T today so as much as i think his "A" time will be around 2.45-3hrs i am going to slow things down and deal with just one nap at a time starting with the morning and as the first "A" time of the day can be shorter than the rest i am going to start at 2.30hrs and stick at it for a full week to try and get out of the O/T cycle we are in then the worst that can happen if its too short is that i start getting U/T naps, but if that's the case then next week i can move up to 2.45hrs with him U/T and not as O/T as he is now.

My only worry is that most of the longer afternoon naps i have got (1hr) have been after 2.5hrs "A" time so does that mean the morning should be shorter than 2.5hrs so should i start lower?

It's so hard when we want to see progress immediately, believe me, I know that! I would say if you've gotten 1 hr naps on 2.5 hrs of A time, that you're probably still fine to try 2.5 for the first nap. That 1 hr nap may be the longest he has, but it's still not "ideal" which tells me that it's probably not quite the right A time for that particular nap. But if he's already OT when he takes that nap (from a short previous nap), then it's just not a reliable indicator at all. So I wouldn't put too much weight on that either.

I think your plan sounds great to try to focus on that first nap of the day and move from there. How was today's first nap with 2.5 hrs of A time? After a few more days, you can reassess based on how long the nap is and whether or not you think he needs more or less A time for that first nap. You will get there!!!

YAY for you Mirabel for taking some time off from sleep training and starting again once you were ready! Like everything, it does take time, but he will learn to self settle. And you are spot on with the night sleep - good sleep brings about more good sleep - so if he sleeps better in the night, he'll sleep better in the day and vice versa.

That 1 hr nap may be the longest he has, but it's still not "ideal" which tells me that it's probably not quite the right A time for that particular nap. But if he's already OT when he takes that nap (from a short previous nap), then it's just not a reliable indicator at all.

Michelle you are spot on, I'm trying not to put too much weight on the 1hr naps I have had with 2.5hrs of "A" time because they only happen once every few days when he is way overtired and crashes out so they don't really count for anything.

We are starting our new 2.5hr routine tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed and I'll keep you posted.

Do most babies start to show sleepy cues and start getting sleepy when they get close to their "A" time or do they just pushed passed it and carry on, it's just so I know if I should be watching for sleepy signs?

sleepy cues vary widely - from bub to bub and even with the same bub as they grow and change. For us what helped was watching what dd was doing as the "average" A time approached. In the early months, we found that if we waited til we saw the first yawn, we were too late. And so we learned to recognize what she did before that first yawn. Then as she got older, those pre-yawn cues turned out to not be so accurate any more, and often were just "I'm bored" cues and she wanted a change of scenery (this was before she was crawling - so somewhere about 6-8 mos), and then it became a bit harder to figure out what was a tired cue and what was a bored cue. So again, I used A times as a guide and if 2.5 hrs was the "average" A time, and I thought she was showing tired signs at 1 hr 45, I was probably not reading her cues right, so I'd switch up her activity, move her to another room etc, and she'd rebound. If it had been 3 hrs and she seemed still happy as a clam, well, it probably wasn't happy but over stimulated. Even now, at 3.5 that's the case. If she goes past her "window" for optimal sleep, she just gets more animated and others would look at her and say "she's not tired" but I know "oh dear....she's way beyond tired..." and know that she'll need some more help settling to sleep.

I find the same thing is happening to us as well. When Madden was younger, I used to be able to count on his tired cues (ie. yawning, rubbing eyes), now, I don't even get a yawn anymore! He just keeps going and going until he gets over-hyper...then I know we've missed his sleep window and it's going to take him awhile to settle down for a nap. That's why I've decided to just stick by the average A time instead.

So we had managed to increase our 1st nap to from 30 to 60mins but it didnt seem to want to go any higher than the hour so today i upped our "A" time to 2.45hrs and:

Sunday "A" time 2.45hrs - 1st Nap 35mins - 2nd Nap 30mins

Yes we are back down to 30min naps ??, so now im wondering if i should stick it out at 2.45hrs and hope it will take a few days to adjust and will increase up past the 60mins or should i just go back down to 2.30hrs and be happy with a 60min 1st nap and work on increasing our afternoon nap? Or maybe even try 2.30 for our first "A" but go up to 2.45/3hrs for our 2nd "A"?

It often takes 3-5 days (and sometimes a full week) for a change in A time to result in a change in nap times. So I would stick with 2.5 hrs for that first nap for a full week, but if his nap is less than 1 hr, I would shorten it before his next nap. If his first nap is at least an hour, then you could do 2.5 or 2hr45 min for the next one (since the first A of the day is often the shortest), but watch his cues and see.

Tracypopping over from the other forum...I agree, you definitely need to give the adjusted A times a few days at least. Also, agree that if you start the day with a 30 min nap you'll need to put him down for another nap earlier than anticipated. With that said, if he's only sleeping for an hour a day I'm guessing he's massively OT by the end of the day. How is BT going? Would you be willing to try to get him to sleep a little earlier to catch up? I had this exact problem around 7 months...and it took several weeks to sort out. I had to get him caught up on sleep, and then find the right A time. Hang in there, and just keep at it. I'll keep following along and give advice for what it's worth Kim

Yes we are back down to 30min naps ??, so now im wondering if i should stick it out at 2.45hrs and hope it will take a few days to adjust and will increase up past the 60mins or should i just go back down to 2.30hrs and be happy with a 60min 1st nap and work on increasing our afternoon nap? Or maybe even try 2.30 for our first "A" but go up to 2.45/3hrs for our 2nd "A"?

IMO, I would go back down to 2:30 until that nap drops to under 60 min and then increase to 2:45. And then when he gets a nap under 60 min at 2:45 only then increase to 3hrs, and so on. This is what worked for me when I was going thru this, and also I made sure that Ellen got a nap under 60 min for 2 days in a row so that I knew it was a need for more atime and not a fluke, iykwim. And yes, IMO, I think that you should go 2:30 first atime and then 2:45 second atime b/c that second nap you got on Saturday was 40 min, which is usually UT. This is also what happened to Ellen - she could handle a bit more on her second atime.

Also, I must say that Michelle (Deckchariot) is a forum moderator and has WAAAAY more experience than I do and has given advice on lots more LO's than I've ever dealt with, but for me, the only thing that finally worked was *not* shortening atimes after a short nap. So if she got a 40 min nap, if I tried to shorten her atime, I just messed things up even more. I had to stick with the atimes we were at no matter how long her naps were. That's the only way I got out of the OT/UT cycle. But even more important than that I think is to get that first nap in order and then work on the atime for the second nap. But figuring out the first nap atime also depends on getting a good night sleep before it, IME.